The Gator Behind Bill Clinton

Wednesday

Feb 4, 2009 at 11:07 AMFeb 5, 2009 at 12:26 PM

Life Is A Globe-trotting Adventure for Uf Grad Doug Band — Chief Counselor To The Former President.

By Alisson Clark

His official title is Counselor to President Clinton, but “counselor” only begins to describe Doug Band’s job.The 1995 University of Florida grad describes his globe-trotting, nonstop life withClinton as “being him for him.”“My job is to be as close as I can be to being him when he’s not available,” Band says. And it seems to be working: “My hair is almost as gray as his now,” the 35-year-old jokes.

In Clinton’s sprawling post-presidential universe, which ranges from his foundation’s worldwide AIDS initiatives to the hard-fought campaign for the Democratic nomination, there many be no one closer to Clinton than Band, who became Clinton’s personal aide while he was still in the White House and remained at his side when he left office in 2001.“In the post-presidency, we have a limited staff and a lot to do. We’re running a foundation, creating a presidential library, overseeing programs all over the world. It’s an incredible challenge,” Band says.

Clinton credits Band with the success of those endeavors: In an email to Gainesville Magazine, Clinton wrote, “I wouldn’t be able to get through the day without Doug, and I couldn’t have accomplished half of what I’ve done in my post-presidency without him.” It was Band’s idea to start the Clinton Global Initiative, which oversees 1,000 projects in 100 countries.“Doug’s idea to create the Clinton Global Initiative has enabled world leaders, NGOs, philanthropists, students and others to work together to make positive change,” Clinton wrote. “Doug epitomizes the CGI ideals of not just talking about the problems and challenges facing our world but taking action to solve them.”“Doug has been the key to helping me realize my vision to create a forum to inspire and engage people, from all walks of life, to give of themselves in order to improve our world and help others.”Clinton heaped similar accolades on Band while speaking to a packed house at the O’Connell Center in 2003. Band, however, prefers to avoid the spotlight. He says he begged Clinton not to come to his 2007 Paris wedding to Lily Rafii.“Not only did he come, he made this incredible speech,” Band says, sounding grateful for the gesture but slightly mortified at all the attention. The spotlight only grew more intense, however, when Band appeared alongside Clinton during a contentious January television interview with an ABC reporter. Band never spoke during the interview, but his center-stage placement next to Clinton led The Washington Post to wonder, “Who is this guy?” Next up was a dishy online story from New York magazine that dug up his dating past and details about his wedding ceremony. Then Vanity Fair came calling.“In this job, you try to remain behind the scenes, but at some point, it catches up with you,” he says. “But to me, they’re missing the real story” — namely, the impact that the Clinton Foundation hopes to make across the globe.“There are 2.7 million people in the developing world on antiretroviral medication for AIDS, and we supply just over half of that. When you meet a 12-year-old kid, then you see him again five years later and he’s still alive because of this program — that’s what it’s about,” Band says. “I don’t need to be on TV. I don’t need to see my name in print. That’s not why I do this.”When Band arrived at UF in 1990, he predicted his career would lead back to his hometown of Sarasota to work as a lawyer in his father’s firm, then eventually to state politics. If his tenure at UF is any indication, Band would have been a natural: Like many state pols, his resume includes membership in Florida Blue Key, a long list of extracurricular leadership programs — some of his own creation — and a stint as president of the Interfraternity Council. But when he landed a spot as a White House intern just after graduating with a major in English and the university’s first minor in ethics, Band jumped at the chance to go to Washington. During his time as Clinton’s personal aide in the White House, Band was shadowed by actor Dulé Hill, who played the personal assistant to President Josiah Bartlet on the TV series “The West Wing.” Hill, who became close friends with Band, wanted to understand the ins and outs of the job a former aide likened to “drinking out of a fire hose.” (The show, incidentally, became the best way for Band to explain to friends and family what his job at the White House entailed. “It’s more complicated now,” he says.) “People don’t really grasp the enormity of it: You’re the one person who is around the president all day every day,” says Band, who managed to earn master’s and law degrees from Georgetown in night school while working at the White House.

Family tiesThe close relationship he’s developed with the Clintons in the past 13 years makes it difficult for Band to hear them criticized, he says. That made traveling with Hillary Clinton’s campaign — a grueling 28-day-a-month road trip — even more difficult, he says.“I’ve had to see the nastier side of politics,” he says. “It’s so hard to hear people say terrible things about them, when all they know how to do is help people. They are public servants to the 1,000th degree. I can barely read the stuff that’s said about them, mostly by people who have never met them. No one captures them for who they are.”Despite moving in powerful circles — he stays at Bono’s house, hangs out with Steven Spielberg and Nelson Mandela, and chats with “the Google boys” regularly — Band hasn’t had his head turned by his unique quasi-celeb status: He knows it’s not him the celebrities are there to see.“I don’t think for a moment that it has anything to do with me,” he says.And despite working in politics his entire adult life, he hasn’t completely adjusted to Washington culture.“In D.C., the whole idea that you meet someone and become friends in five minutes was very foreign to me. Most of the friends I have are guys I’ve known my whole life,” he says. He and his childhood friends from Sarasota, along with several guys added to the gang during his time at UF, still get together once a year in Lake Tahoe and at occasional Gator football games. And though his life is full of surreal moments in which he admits to occasionally feeling a bit starstruck (playing checkers with Tony Blair, toting Queen Elizabeth’s jewelry) his idea of a perfect day is simple: “My favorite place is on the couch watching a movie with friends, having pizza.”Band also hopes to start a family: “Watching Chelsea grow up into this unbelievably brilliant young woman is really great: It makes me anxious to have children of my own,” he says. “I’m trying to convince my wife to name our kids Albert and Alberta, but I’m not getting anywhere,” he jokes. He has made inroads with Rafii’s interest in college football, however.“She went to Georgetown and Columbia, so taking her to the Homecoming game was like taking her to Mars,” Band says, “but now she wears her Gator shirt with pride.”While he tries to make it to at least one football game each season, Band also finds himself standing up for the Gators outside of Gainesville, particularly when he runs into former UF President John Lombardi, a mentor who Band now counts as a good friend despite his current position leading conference rival Louisiana State University.“He harasses me with his LSU tie. He and James Carville [a lifelong LSU fan] and I have a long-standing rivalry,” Band says.

Global goalsThe Clinton Foundation’s causes range from HIV/AIDS and climate change to sustainable economic development.The stateside impact of Band’s work with the foundation includes a partnership with the American Heart Association to combat childhood obesity, working with schools and food suppliers across the country to encourage healthier school lunches.The focus on global issues, however, hasn’t replaced a lesson Band learned from Clinton ten years ago, when he was still in the White House. Clinton had persuaded Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak to come together for peace talks. Both were stalking around the White House, becoming increasingly agitated, while Clinton met with a terminally ill child from the Make a Wish Foundation in the Oval Office.“I was panicking, thinking they were going to get into a fight, and I kept bugging him to wrap up. He was hanging out with this 6-year-old kid for hours. Finally, he said, ‘If you bug me one more time, you can go update your resume,’” Band recalls. “It righted me.”Clinton says the influence goes both ways.“Doug is making a huge difference in the lives of millions of people he has never met,” he said, “and has made an extraordinary impact on mine.”